Jacoby’s, a Twin Peaks-themed tiki bar, opens in Enmore

David Lynch and tiki culture are the inspiration for
Jacoby's, a brand-new bar by a top-notch Sydney team.

Jacoby's, the dark-tiki bar from the team
behind Earl's Juke Joint in Newtown, opens its
doors this weekend after more than a year of anticipation. Inspired
partly by the dark underbelly of tiki culture and partly by
David Lynch, auteur and patron saint of dark
underbellies, the idea for the Enmore bar came to Earl's Juke Joint
co-owner Pasan Wijesena, general manager James Fury and their
colleague Adrian Sanchez last year while drinking at
Tiki-Ti in Los Angeles. "In all our travels, we
always end up loving tiki bars the best," says Wijesena. "The
laid-back vibe, the music, the kitschy fit-outs - what's not to
love?"

There's been no holding back on the theme at Jacoby's. The focus
is firmly on rum classics, and remixing lesser-known tiki drinks
from the '50s. The Tropical Itch subs in Bulleit rye for the
bourbon while Tiki Ti's Puka Punch rides again with Tanqueray,
yellow Chartreuse and Fassionola syrup. The tight 10-cocktail core
list is complemented by Mai Tais and other Tiki standards made to
order.

The bar takes its name from a character in David Lynch's
television series Twin Peaks: Dr Lawrence Jacoby, Laura
Palmer's psychiatrist and a tiki obsessive. "We love the noir,
darker aspects of tiki culture," says Wijesena. "At the end of the
day, you're drinking out of a shrunken head."

But the team haven't lost sight of the lighter side. A careful
read of the cocktail menu is rewarded with one-liners like
"Contains more sting than The Police" and Twin Peaks in-jokes about
Agent Cooper's love of coffee.

Wines are organised by shade, with a particular focus on rosé
and orange wines, "echoing the hues of a Hawaiian sunset",
according to Wijesena. Local minimal-intervention players like Brave New Wines and Lucy Margaux are there, as
are drops from France, Italy and Georgia. Beers include Jamaica's
Red Stripe Pale Lager and an IPA and golden ale from Hawaiian
brewery Kona.

All the syrups and shrubs are made in-house, Wijesena tells us.
"I'm also interested in utilising vinegars, tinctures and cold-drip
infusions, again reaffirming a bartender's real guise as a nerdy
shut-in rather than a loud party boy," he says. Toasted sandwiches
provide the ballast.

Sydney has other venues with tiki in their DNA (The Cliff Dive, from fellow Shady Pines alumni
Jeremy Blackmore and Alex Dowd notable among them) but Wijesena
says Jacoby's point of difference is that it's smaller, "almost
like being in someone's over-the-top rumpus room until 2am". The
design harks back to the '50s and '60s, but with a touch of '90s
eccentricity and vintage Tropicália. "It has that sense of
something that's been boarded up and hidden away for decades, only
to be revealed in all its seedy, strange and wonderful glory."